Sacrifice

Civil war rages as the Galactic Alliance led by Cal Omas and the Jedi forces of Luke Skywalker battles a confederation of breakaway planets that rally to the side of rebellious Corellia. Suspected of involvement in an assassination plot against Queen Mother Tenel Ka of the Hapes Consortium, Han and Leia Solo are on the run, hunted by none other than their own son, Jacen, whose increasingly authoritarian tactics as head of GA security have led Luke and Mara Skywalker to fear that their nephew may be treading perilously close to the dark side.

"The ambition of most beings is just to stay alive, overeat, spend too much, and avoid hard work. I'm happy that I can achieve much more than that ... and we die sooner or later. A death in service of a great ideal is a fine thing." -Lumiya.

BEN: "Mom, have you ever had to do something you didn't want to do, but you knew you had to?"
MARA: "Yes, sweetheart, I have. And the problem was that when I looked back, I found I'd done the wrong thing sometimes. But it'll be years before I'll know if what I'm doing now is right."

Comment

Not being a fan of Mara Jade, such as myself, one might actually find this novel quite enjoyable as she finally meets her end. Throughout the course of the book, she is really quite annoying in that she only gets mad and wants to kill other people. She also proves herself to be a terrible mother when she doesn't at least reprimand Ben for all the murders he begins to commit. Boba Fett's story is pretty boring until the end when he learns that his wife is still alive. Inclusion of the Mandalorian language is cool, but requires you to have to do lots of guessing as to what some of the words might mean. Lumiya is a great character in this book, but like Mara, also meets her end. The best part of this novel is probably when Luke realizes that he wrongfully killed Lumiya for Mara's murder and feels more concerned over her death instead of his Wife's.

This is the middle book in the nine-book Legacy of the Force series, set about 40 years after the original Star Wars movies. As such, this is the book where the key event of the series takes place. A major character turns to the Dark side of the Force, becoming a Sith Lord, and killing another major character in the process.

The backdrop for this is the war between the Galactic Alliance and the Corellian-led Confederation. There's also a sub-plot involving Boba Fett and the Mandalorians. Written by Karen Traviss, who wrote the excellent Republic Commando and Imperial Commando novels, the Mandalorian sections are sometimes more interesting than the main plot. The Mandalorians, for all their odd warrior-nomad culture, are easier to relate to than the Force-using characters. In fact, on more than one occasion, a Jedi character reflects on all the history-making events his family and friends are always involved in compared to the ordinary lives of ordinary people.

Overall, the plot moves along well, although I found a political assassination in the middle to be unrealistically planned and executed. You'd think they'd have a better plan for extracting the assassin from the scene.

Sacrifice is a major theme. The Sith Lord-to-be must sacrifice something to achieve a new level of Force mastery. Meanwhile, a character sacrifices himself to save a colleague. The former is an emotional sacrifice only on the Sith's part; he remains physically intact while his victim serves as an involuntary sacrifice. The latter is a true sacrifice, offering himself up willingly to save another.

We've been a long time getting here -- five books. Now comes the battle against the newly minted Sith Lord. I am hopeful that the tension and drama will climb a bit from here on.